UFOs – Listorati

Top 10 Reasons The U.S. Government Is No Longer Laughing About UFOs

Johan Tobias — Fri, 29 Sep 2023 11:32:00 +0000

On June 25, 2021, just in time for Washington’s usual “when nobody’s looking” Friday information dumps, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released its assessment of “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena” or UAP (that’s government-speak for UFOs). The assessment was a disappointing 6 pages (not counting title page and appendices). It, nevertheless, had a few surprising revelations.

First, the study limited its scope to UAP reports between November 2004 and March 2021 from military aviators – mostly naval pilots – whom the ODNI considered reliable witnesses. Surprisingly, they found 144 such reports and only 1 of them they could explain (but added they could eliminate more sightings with more data). Eighty of these reports were supported by electronic sensors (i.e. radar, infrared), giving credence not just to the reports, but that the UAPs were real, solid objects (as opposed to illusions or storm clouds). And 18 of the UAPs demonstrated speeds or movements that could not be explained by existing technologies.

Perhaps more disquieting is that most of these sightings were around military installations or training and testing grounds. This is what we’d expect if the witnesses were military personnel. But is that the only reason? Eleven of these UAPs had near collisions with the military aircraft. Could they have been attacks? Warnings? Testing of the aircraft’s capabilities? The ODNI must have wondered that too. They warned that these UAPs were potential hazards to national security. Here are 10 reasons the government is now concerned.

10 Truly Unbelievable Claims Of UFO And Alien Encounters

10 The Los Alamos Green Balls of Light (December, 1948)

Sightings of UFOs stretch all the way back to antiquity, but these strange encounters increased exponentially during World War II, the most violent conflict in human history. Sightings were so common, U.S. aviators began to call them “Foo Fighters.” Coined by Donald Meiers, a radar operator for the 415th Night Fighter Squadron, Foo Fighters described mysterious glowing objects seen in the skies over Europe during missions. There are several accounts of Foo Fighters following or shadowing military aircraft for several minutes before peeling away, changing direction and speed on a dime. The fear was that Hitler had developed a superweapon, but aviation historians have since denied that possibility. The Nazis had neither aircraft nor rockets advanced enough for such maneuvers. Nor are there any known instances of these UFOs engaging these aircraft in combat, something the Nazis would definitely do. So what would be the purpose of shadowing and observing aircraft on combat missions?

Perhaps more disconcerting was the appearance of these lights after the war around the top secret Los Alamos and Sandia atomic weapons laboratories in New Mexico where the world’s first atomic bomb was assembled and tested. By 1948, the labs – specifically Los Alamos—were developing the thermonuclear or hydrogen bomb that was 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb. For nine days in December, 1948, green orbs of light – sometimes called balls of fire – flew above or near the labs. On December 5th , one of the orbs played chicken with an aircraft, forcing the pilot to veer off at the last second. On December 20th, a green orb descended at 45 degrees, then abruptly leveled off – something a meteorite wouldn’t do. Nor did anyone find evidence a meteorite reached the ground. The government was so disconcerted that they sent an expert to investigate and he determined the lights were man-made, either secret U.S. “defensive devices” or Soviet spying apparatus. Another expert posited it was ball lightning, but ball lightning is so rare we know very little about it. What are the odds something so rare would happen in the same area on nine separate nights in the same month? The lights continued to visit the area until the early 1950’s.

9 The Washington D.C. Sightings (July, 1952)

If Washington was concerned about the green orbs over Los Alamos, imagine how they’d feel with UFOs whizzing over their heads. Shortly before midnight on July 19th, 1952, an air-traffic controller at Washington National Airport found 7 slow-moving unidentified objects on his radar. Two more controllers at National Airport reported an odd light in the distance that hovered, then zipped away. Controllers at Andrews Air Force Base also saw a cluster of blips on their radar, racing away at speeds exceeding 7,000 mph. A commercial pilot for Capital Airlines saw six streaking lights over Washington “like falling stars without tails.” He added: “In my years of flying I’ve seen a lot of falling stars… But these were much faster… They couldn’t have been aircraft.” Two F-94 jets were sent to investigate, but the lights disappeared. The lights reappeared a week later on July 26 and this time an F-94 acquired a visual on the lights. But his jet had a top speed of 640 mph and he never caught up to it.

The next day the press was screaming for answers. President Truman was demanding them. So the Air Force did the obvious thing: it lied. A press conference was called and the press was told it was a temperature inversion, which, they explained, happens when warm air traps cooler air low in the atmosphere and radar signals bounce off it, making ground objects appear to be flying. It’s fairly common in the muggy summer months in Washington D.C., so common that all the radar operators were familiar with it and insisted temperature inversions were not what they saw on radar. Nor would an F-94 pilot chase a temperature inversion. And yet the Air Force explanation worked: the public outcry fell to a whisper.

But in true government form, they assigned a group to study the phenomena (but were not interested in properly funding it). The U.S. government entity that put out the June 25, 2021, report was the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF). It was just the most recent entity in a long history of such entities. The first three were Project Sign (1948), Project Grudge (1949 – 1951) and Project Blue Book (1952 – 1969) all headed by the U.S. Air Force. The latter – Project Blue Book – was established in March 1952 and probably would have continued to investigate a handful of sightings a year if it weren’t for the April 7, 1952, issue of Life magazine. Just to the left of a sultry picture of Marilyn Monroe was the caption “There is a Case For Interplanetary Saucers.” UFOlogy was suddenly mainstream and Project Blue was inundated with UFO sightings, jumping from 23 in March to 148 in June. But after the Air Force’s temperature inversion theory was released, sightings to Project Blue Book dropped again, from 50 a day to 10. Years later when the relevant government papers were declassified, they showed that the administration wasn’t trying to cover-up secrets, unless you consider their inability to find their own butt inside their pants a secret.

8 Operation Mainbrace Sightings (September, 1952)

But 1952 wasn’t done yet. That September the U.S. and 7 other NATO nations along with New Zealand conducted a massive war-games exercise in the North Sea off Denmark and Norway. With 200 ships, 80,000 personnel, and 1,000 planes, Operation Mainbrace was the largest combined sea, land and air operation since World War II. Someone at the Pentagon joked that they should expect UFOs to show up as well. By the end of the 12 day operation, no one was laughing.

On the operation’s first day – September 13 – a Danish destroyer was just north of Borhnholm Island when Lieutenant Commander Schmidt Jensen and several fellow crewmembers observed a triangular bluish UFO as it flew by at a speed Jensen estimated to be 900 mph. A week later a British aircraft was landing at the Topcliffe airfield at Yorkshire, England, when air and ground crews observed a silver, disk-shaped object following it, swinging to and fro like a pendulum. When the aircraft circled the airfield, the object hovered, rotating on its axis. It then shot away at a speed greater than a shooting star.

On September 20, a metallic disk flew over Karup Field in Denmark at high speed. That same day the U.S. carrier Franklin D. Roosevelt was buzzed by a silver, spherical object that was photographed by reporter Wallace Litwin. His 4 photographs of what he described as a “white ping-pong ball” have never been released to the public. The next day, 6 British RAF pilots chased a shiny sphere, but could not catch it. On September 27 and 28, there were widespread UFO sightings in Germany, Denmark and Sweden. None of the sightings have been explained by anything other than the usual “it was a weather balloon.”

In his 1956 memoir The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, later to be the director of Project Blue Book, Captain Edward J. Ruppelt wrote he initially thought the governments “brush-offs” were meant to keep the public from panicking. Instead he found a combination of a lack of interest, disbelief and aversion to admitting wrong blocked his investigative efforts. Even in the face of mounting, compelling evidence, the government just wanted it to go away.

7 Malmstrom AFB UFO Incident (March, 1967)

Perhaps the most disquieting UFO incident on this list is not a single incident at all, but the first of a decades-long harassment of the personnel manning and maintaining the missile silos at Malmstrom Air Force Base in central Montana. On a crisp March morning in 1967, Deputy Missile Combat Crew Commander (DMCCC) Robert Salas was 60 feet underground at the Oscar-Flight Launch Control Center (LCC) where he and his commander monitored and – if so ordered – launched 10 ICBM missiles, each with an 800 kiloton nuclear warhead. That’s when Salas got a bizarre call from his LCC’s head of security upstairs: they had a UFO just above the LLC, making strange zig-zag movements. Salas hung up, annoyed at what he perceived to be a joke. A few minutes later the security head called again. The UFO – an orange and red pulsating oval-shaped object—was now hovering at the front gate. Salas hung up and woke his sleeping commander just as all hell broke loose.

A Klaxon alarm sounded and on the control panel “A ‘No-Go’ light and two red security lights were lit indicating problems at one of our missile sites…Another alarm went off at another site, then another and another simultaneously. Within the next few seconds, we had lost six to eight missiles to a ‘No-Go’ (inoperable) condition,” Salas would later relate. Eventually all 10 missiles were inoperable, would not launch, would not respond to commands. Repair crews were quickly dispatched, but it took a full day for the missiles to be brought back online.

Just a week before, a similar event happened at the Echo-Flight LLC under the same command but 20 miles from Oscar-Flight. Security and maintenance personnel contacted the Echo-Flight LLC to tell them there were UFOs hovering over two missile silos. Shortly afterward, ‘No-Go’ alarms began to wail as their 10 missiles became inoperable. Echo-Flight’s missiles, too, were down for a day. A full-scale investigation of both incidents failed to find a cause and Boeing conducted laboratory tests. “There were no significant failures, engineering data or findings that would explain how ten missiles were knocked off alert,” wrote Boeing. “…there was no technical explanation that could explain the event.” They did theorize an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) might have caused the missiles to go off-line, but the equipment was shielded from an EMP up to a certain level. An EMP above that level required technology that didn’t exist in 1967.

Nor were these two incidents isolated. In November 1975, Malmstrom reported multiple disk or saucer-shaped UFOs with various colored lights hovered over the Weapons Storage Area where the nuclear warheads were kept. A pair of F-106s were dispatched but the lights disappeared. UFOs appeared again over Malmstrom in 1992, 1995 and 1996.

Nor was Malmstrom alone in these visitations. Between 1963 and 1996 there are dozens of UFO sightings over missile facilities or Weapons Storage Areas at Minot (North Dakota), Francis E. Warren (Wyoming), Ellsworth (South Dakota), Vandenburg (California), and Walker (New Mexico) Air Force Bases. UFOs were also reported at Wurtsmith (Michigan) and Loring (Maine) AFBs where B-52 nuclear bombers were stationed during the Cold War. At one of the Warren AFB silos, a missile’s targeting “tape” had been erased after a UFO hovered above it in the fall of 1973.

Perhaps one of the most well documented incidents also occurred over an ICBM site at Minot AFB on October 24, 1968. Sixteen Air Force personnel on the ground and 7 more in a B-52 overhead testified to seeing a large brilliantly lit object that changed colors from white to amber to green and at one point split into two objects. The government claimed it was a combination of two stars – Sirius and Vega – and some kind of plasma.

In September of 2010, a number of the Air Force officers who’d witnessed these UFO incursions gathered in Washington to highlight a scary pattern: UFOs are monitoring – and it some cases sabotaging—America’s nuclear arsenal. Where these UFOs malevolent or benevolent?

6 Cua Viet River Fire Fight (June, 1968)

The pattern of UFO interest in war continued after World War II. During the 3-year Korean War, there were dozens of UFO sightings, 42 of which were corroborated by secondary witnesses. One incident stands out. In May of 1951, American troops were at Chorwon, Korea, watching as artillery bombarded the enemy. Suddenly an orange-glowing object – like a “jack-o-lantern”—appeared atop a nearby mountain and quickly descended, flying without damage through the artillery bursts toward the American line. The UFO began pulsating a blue-green light. One private, Francis P. Wall, asked for and received permission to fire his M-1 rifle at the UFO and his bullets made metallic “dings” against the UFO’s hull. Its response was to attack. “We were… swept by some form of ray that was emitted in pulses, in waves that you could visually see only when it was aiming at you.” Wall remembered he experienced a tingling, burning throughout his body. The object hovered for a moment, then shot away at high speed. Three days later Wall’s entire company came down with dysentery and very high white-blood-cell count, similar to radiation poisoning.

Seventeen years later America was in another war, this time in Vietnam. Captain George Filer was an intelligence officer who daily briefed General George S. Brown, deputy commander of air operations in Vietnam. Frequently Filer’s briefings included UFO sightings and way too often they went from sightings to armed conflict.

Just after midnight on June 16, 1968, the patrol boat designated PCF-12 was on a routine night patrol on Cua Viet River not far from where it empties into the South China Sea, when it received a distress call from another patrol boat. PCF-19 said it was under attack from unidentified lights it called “enemy helicopters.” The North Vietnamese had a few Soviet MI-4 Hound helicopters at the time, but they were usually deployed along the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos. Why would an attacking enemy helicopter have its lights on, making it easier for the Americans to hit it? PCF-12 was captained by Lieutenant Pete Snyder and as his swift boat approached PCF-19, he said he could see two bright lights with a “strange glow” hovering above PCF-19. One of the lights flashed brightly and PCF-19 exploded. The pair of lights then sped away. Two wounded survivors were picked up later by a Coast Guard Cutter and the survivors reported the pair of lights had stalked the PCF-19 for miles before the crew began firing at them. The lighted object then destroyed PCF-19.

PCF-12 motored up the Cua Viet River and encountered the pair of lights again. Snyder ordered his men to open fire, but the UFO was unphased. PCF-12 retreated as it fired, the object following. Eventually the lights were chased off by a pair F-4 Phantoms. This action so unnerved the American forces, it may have contributed to friendly fire the next night when F-4 Phantoms allegedly fired on the cruiser USS Boston and the Australian destroyer HMAS Hobart, killing two sailors and wounding 8. Extensive searches found no “enemy helicopter” wreckage anywhere in the area. Investigators determined that both incidents were the result of friendly fire, but, in the case of the destruction of PCF-19, no aircraft – friendly or enemy – were in the vicinity at the time. Interestingly, years later General George Brown admitted that the phrase “enemy helicopters” was a euphemism for UFOs. Is that what PCF-19 meant when they said they were under attack?

5 Campeche, Mexico sightings (March 5, 2004)

In the early evening of March 5, 2004, the Mexican Air Force was hunting drug smugglers along the east coast state of Campeche. The C-26A aircraft was flying at 11,500 feet when the crew turned on its infrared camera and noticed multiple bogeys – at one point 11 of them – on the monitor. ”We are not alone! This is so weird,” one crewmember can be heard saying. Since the camera only senses heat signatures, it doesn’t show the object’s exact outlines, its details or structure. The C-26A followed the blobs for a short time and some crewman claimed the objects actually surrounded their aircraft before breaking off.

When the Mexican air force released the video in May, it created quite a stir. Skeptics claimed the images were electrical flashes, ball lightning and even plasma sparks. A more plausible skeptical explanation was that the lights were flares from oil wells out in the Bay of Campeche. The area is the heart of Mexico’s petroleum industry with more than 200 wells in the bay, and they light flares on the tops of the rigs to burn off excess natural gas. UFOlogists proclaimed these images were far superior to the typical grainy pictures of UFOs the world was used to. Not really. It was cloudy, hot and humid that March 5, the images taken at sunset when temperatures were fluctuating, causing havoc not just with the human eye, but the infrared camera.

4 USS Nimitz Incident (November 14, 2004)

Just under two weeks before Thanksgiving, 2004, Carrier Strike Group 11 was training off the coast of southern California when the radar on the missile cruiser USS Princeton detected some 14 anomalous aerial vehicles (AAV) – yet another term for UFOs – uniformly spread out over 100 miles and was deemed a threat to the exercise. Two F/A-18F Super Hornet fighters from the carrier USS Nimitz – who had also picked up the AAVs on radar—were dispatched to the nearest object, guided by an E-2 Hawkeye airborne radar.

Once they had reached the intercept point, the F/A-18’s radar could not detect the AAV. Nor were they electronically jammed. That’s when the F/A-18 crews noticed a disturbance on the surface of the ocean below them, and flying just above the frothing disturbance was a white oblong object shaped like a “Tic-Tac” mint. Under its belly were what looked like two appendages. It was 40-50 feet long, 10-15 feet wide. There were no wings or engine heat or exhaust. It was moving erratically, instantaneously changing directions like, as one F/A-18 crewmember described, a ping pong ball bouncing off invisible walls. One of the F/A-18s descended to get a better look, but the object anticipated that and kept its distance. When the F/A-18 tried to intercept, the AAV shot away. The pilot, CDR David Favor, said: “And it takes off like nothing I’ve ever seen. It literally is one minute it’s there and the next minute it’s like -poof – and it’s gone.” Favor points out that an aircraft flying at Mach 3 will still be visible for 10-15 seconds. “This thing disappeared in a second, it was just gone.”

Shortly afterward the object returned and was videotaped. It was later determined that there was no submarine at the location of the water disturbance or any other known cause. From the video and radar information, it was calculated the object was moving 282,000 mph with a g-force of 12,823. No human could survive such g-forces, nor any aircraft survive the air friction at that speed. At that velocity there should have been noise when the object broke the sound barrier and the friction should have created a fireball. And yet the object was tracked by 3 highly sophisticated radar systems (from the Princeton, Nimitz and the E-2 Hawkeye) at different radar frequencies supporting the contention that this was a physical object and not a weather phenomena such as temperature inversion.

Shortly after the incident, the recordings of the radar, ship logs and other electronic proof was confiscated and it wasn’t until 2017 when a small portion of the evidence was declassified and released to the public. A careful analysis came to the conclusion that the “Tic-Tac” was not an “aircraft of any known type,” had “no aerodynamic air-frame, no obvious means of reactive propulsion, [and had] acceleration characteristics beyond human endurance and air-frame structural capability.”

Mike West, a former video-game designer and UFO skeptic, said the “Tic-Tac” is simply glare on the camera lens. The movements it makes? Simply the sweeping motions of the camera as it tries to keep a visual lock on the “glare.” West also said it could be due to the parallax effect, where stationary objects appear to move when it is actually the viewer moving. The problem is that the video is supported by reliable eyewitnesses who saw it with their own eyeballs. David Fravor, one of the pilots who saw the “Tic-Tac,” said it was not an illusion, and not glare. “It’s funny how people can extrapolate stuff who’ve never operated the system,” he said. Even the Navy, who has every reason to accept West’s theory, say the images are real and simply characterize the “Tic-Tac” as “unidentified.”

3 USS Theodore Roosevelt Sightings (2015)

Along with the Nimitz footage, two other F/A-18 Super Hornet videos were declassified in 2017 and released to the public. Both were shot by the same pilot from the carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt while training off the eastern coast from Virginia to Florida before deployment to the Persian Gulf. A total of 6 seasoned pilots and weapons system operators (WSO) experienced multiple encounters.

The first encounter was in the summer of 2014 when Lieutenant Danny Accoin and his WSO picked up a UFO on radar and Accoin positioned his F/A-18 1,000 feet below the object. He should have been able to spot it with his helmet camera thru his canopy, but was unable to. A few days later, Accoin again encountered the object. This time Accoin got a missile lock on the object, but still could not visually see it. Accoin thought these UFOs were advanced military drones, until another Roosevelt pilot had a near collision.

In late 2014, the Roosevelt was training off Virginia Beach and a pilot – who wished to remain anonymous – was flying with his wingman, 100 feet between them. Then something flew between them that looked like a sphere encased in a cube. It flew so close, an aviation flight safety report had to be filed. If these UFOs were drones operated by the military, Accoin reasoned, they wouldn’t have endangered the pilots with a near-collision. “It turned from a potentially classified drone program to safety issue,” Lieutenant Ryan Graves said.

Then in 2015, the so-called “go-fast” and “gimbal” videos were taken. The objects have “no distinct wing, no distinct tail, no distinct exhaust plume,” Accoin said of the videos. It also shows the UFOs accelerating to hypersonic speed, making abrupt stops and instantaneous turns, something a human wouldn’t survive. “Speed doesn’t kill you,” Lieutenant Graves said. “Stopping does. Or acceleration.”

2 USS Russell’s Pyramid UFO (July 15, 2019)

In July, 2019, the Navy held military exercises in restricted waters off the San Diego coastline. Beginning July 14, at least three ships were harassed by – what is described in their logs – as “drones.” Often there were multiple unidentified objects and in one case a “white light” paced the speed and direction of a destroyer – the USS Rafael Peralta—and performed “brazen” maneuvers for 90 minutes, far beyond the flight duration of most drones. On July 15, three pyramid-shaped UFOs trailed the destroyer USS Russell at 700 feet. The ship’s log described the “drones” changing elevation and moving erratically in all directions. The Pentagon confirmed that an anonymous sailor on the Russell filmed the UFO using night-vision goggles, and said they have verified the video’s authenticity.

This video was part of a classified briefing the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) had on May 1, 2020 in an effort to “destigmatize” the reporting of these incidents and encourage the military to relate their experiences without the fear of ruining their careers or reputations. It was acknowledged that something is going on, and uncovering what it is will not happen with denials and secrecy. As remarkable as that announcement is, what came out of the Pentagon was shocking.

Luis Elizondo is a former U.S. Counterintelligence Special Agent and worked for nine years in the Office of Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (USD[I]). While at USD(I) , Elizondo headed the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) that, from 2007 to 2012, studied UFO experiences. Even after funding lapsed in 2012, Elizondo said AATIP continued, funded by the military. Elizondo said that by 2017, AATIP had collected compelling evidence that UFOs posed a significant threat to national security. But he was frustrated by continued government secrecy and resigned. He has since been instrumental in releasing the Nimitz, Roosevelt and Russell videos to the public.

Elizondo also released the remarkable news that the Pentagon has three theories about what these UFOs are. The first is that the UFOs are U.S. military or civilian technology the Pentagon is unaware of, something Elizondo considers “highly unlikely.” The second is that the UFOs are “foreign adversarial” tech that the Pentagon is also unaware of. “This would be a huge intelligence failure of [the United States] because we’ve been technologically leapfrogged,” Elizondo said. He summarized the third theory: “If it’s not ours and it’s not [another country] well, then it’s someone or something else.”

1 USS Omaha’s Trans Medium UFO (July 15, 2019)

On the same night (July 15) the USS Russell was swarmed by UFOs, another ship – the littoral combat ship USS Omaha – videoed a UFO doing something not often witnessed: it traveled thru the sky and the water. Called a trans medium UFO, it further distanced itself from existing human technology. At approximately 11 p.m. a dark blob appeared near the Omaha. The radar plot said the object was spherical, measuring 6 feet (2 meters) in diameter, and traveling at speeds as much as 158 mph (254 km/h). A crewmember began to film the object displayed on a monitor in the Omaha’s Command Information Center (CIC) and the clip clearly has multiple edits. It stayed in place for nearly an hour before splashing into the water. A submarine investigated soon afterward and neither the object or wreckage was found.

The Omaha video was released with the Russell video at the same May 1, 2020, ONI briefing and the Pentagon has confirmed that the Omaha footage is authentic, that it was filmed by naval personnel and that it, along with the Nimitz, Roosevelt and Russell videos were among the 144 UFO sightings it investigated for the June 25, 2021 report.

From all of this, Luis Elizondo has identified five “unique” technological characteristics these UFOs have that are not evident in existing human technology: they have the tech for instantaneous acceleration, hypersonic speeds (greater than 3,000 mph or Mach 5), low visibility (they easily disappear and reappear), trans medium travel (thru space, atmosphere and water), and positive lift (can fly without wings, ailerons, rudders, or even engine exhausts). For the intelligence community to be unaware a foreign power had “leapfrogged” in developing any one of these characteristics would be unlikely. For the intelligence community to be unaware a foreign power developed all five characteristics would be incomprehensible. “We are seeing these — let’s call them vehicles, if you will — that are incurring [incursions?] into controlled U.S. airspace that are displaying performance characteristics that are frankly well beyond anything we can either replicate or in some cases really even understand,” Elizondo said. And for UFOs to have been displaying these technological advancements as far back as World War II? It stretched believability.

So where does that leave us? Cue “Twilight Zone” theme song.

Top 10 UFOs Caught On Video In Recent Years

About The Author: Steve is the New York Times Bestselling author of “366 Days in Abraham Lincoln’s Presidency” and a frequent contributor to .

10 Crazy Encounters of UFOs, Speeding Trains, and the Railroads

Johan Tobias — Sun, 09 Jul 2023 19:24:10 +0000

Most people are familiar with claims of UFO sightings made from planes. And many of us will have heard or read about UFOs witnessed from the deck of a ship or tracked on the radar of a submarine. However, what perhaps does not come to mind quite so quickly are UFO encounters with locomotive trains, often as they are speeding down the tracks in an otherwise lonely part of their respective countries.

There are many such sightings on record. And what’s more, they span decades, from the start of the modern UFO era to our contemporary times. Here are ten of the most intriguing and bizarre railroad UFO encounters.

Related: 10 UFO And Alien Encounters From America’s Early Years

10 The 1702 Incident: UFO Drags Train Along Tracks in the Soviet Union

Without a doubt, one of the most fascinating encounters involving a moving train occurred on the evening of February 17, 1985, on the Petrozavodsk to Suoyarvi section of the Oktyabrskaya Railway in Soviet Karelia (now the Republic of Karelia). A short time after setting off, the crew noticed a strange, ball-like object moving over the trees alongside the track. What’s more, the object appeared to be following them.

Suddenly, the glowing orb rushed toward the train, coming to within around 100 feet of it. It then moved to a position in front of it, again at about 100 feet. The driver, Sergy Orlov, slammed on the brakes and turned off the engine. However, the train failed to slow down. In fact, it appeared to Orlov and the other driver on board that it was being dragged along the track.

They continued down the tracks, eventually coming up on Novye Peski Station. It seemed as if the object would smash right into the station house ahead. However, it moved from in front of the train at the very last second and circled around the building before moving back in front once more.

It continued to drag the train before disappearing several minutes later. As soon as it vanished, the train began to slow down, eventually coming to a stop at the next station. When Orlov exited the cabin to see if there was any damage, though, a beam of light struck him from above. In fact, he would later claim the light pressed him against the train itself. He eventually struggled back into the cabin and remained there until the light vanished.

The object would return a third time once the train had set out on its final part of the journey. It once more dragged the train for some time before finally disappearing for good.^[1]

9 UFO Crashes Into a Train in Kentucky

Although there is debate as to the authenticity of the account, an incident that unfolded near Paintsville, Kentucky, in the early hours of January 14, 2002, wasn’t merely a sighting of a strange, unknown object, it would result in substantial damage to the freight train in question.

As the train made its way along the tracks, the driver noticed a strange light in the distance. This was followed by the malfunctioning of the train’s electrics and the train slowing down. At this point, the driver noticed that the lights were, in fact, silver disc-shaped objects. What’s more, they appeared to be scanning the river below.

The next thing he knew, as the train made its way around a bend on the track, one of these silver objects was heading straight for him. It would ultimately crash into the front carriage before rising into the air and ascending out of sight as if nothing had happened. The damage to the train, though, was substantial.

What made the alleged incident even stranger was when they finally arrived in Paintsville, a mysterious team of engineers and workers were waiting for them. As was a gentleman named Ferguson, who interviewed the men for several hours. He would eventually tell them that the incident was a “national security matter” and requested they keep the encounter to themselves. The damaged train cars were taken into the strange unit’s custody. ^[2]

8 The Monon Railroad Incident

One of the earliest recorded encounters involving a UFO and a speeding train unfolded at around 3 am on October 3, 1958, on the Monon Railroad in Indiana. On its way to Indianapolis, the crew of Freight Train 91 would witness several strange objects flying over them. The train itself was carrying almost half a mile of cars, with two of the five-man crew being positioned at the back of the train.

While the drivers at the front noticed the lights first, it was the two men at the back—Ed Robinson and Paul Sosbey—who “got the best look at things” when the UFOs circled around the train and then approached them from behind.

Robinson would reach for his flashlight and flash the light toward the objects in an attempt to communicate. This received no response. However, when he aimed the beam of the torch at the object, it moved purposely out of the way. This happened several times and seemingly caused the glowing objects to “zip off” and disappear into the distance. In total, the objects pursued the locomotive for over an hour.^[3]

7 The 1977 Fostoria C&O Railroad Sighting

On the evening of October 21, 1977, Howard Albert was seated in the cabin of his train on the private line of the C&O distribution warehouse in Fostoria, Ohio. He was waiting for the train to be guided into the warehouse when he noticed what he thought was a “shooting star” fly overhead. However, when the star began to “curve downward,” he realized he saw something truly strange.

The object descended to the ground and began to slowly approach the train. At a distance of around 200 feet, it suddenly stopped, hovering about 15 feet from the ground. He looked on in awe before reaching for the walkie-talkie he used to stay in contact with his conductor, Donald. He informed him to “come up to the engine…we got a UFO here!”

Howard described the object as disc-shaped but similar to a “birthday cake.” It also had “glowing banks of vertical tubes” all around it and was “rotating counter-clockwise.” He would estimate that it was around 50 feet high and at least 90 feet wide and was completely silent.

After several moments he decided to let the train’s headlight glow brightly for several seconds to see if the object responded. To his amazement, it did, suddenly glowing brightly for the same amount of time. At this point, Donald had arrived from the back of the train and also saw the object. Both men would later state that while they believed the craft was friendly, both had a bizarre feeling of “knowing” not to approach it. After around 20 minutes, the object began to spin faster, eventually rising into the air and disappearing until it became nothing but a “yellowish star.”^[4]

6 Black Triangular Object Photographed in Plymouth, New Hampshire

According to “Joy P’s” claims on the radio show Coast to Coast, she photographed a bizarre triangular craft while on a moving train near Plymouth in New Hampshire. What’s more, the sighting occurred in broad daylight on the afternoon of October 25, 2003.

Joy would claim that she was attempting to capture pictures of red deer she could see in the forests that lined the train tracks. However, when she studied the photos later that day, she noticed the black triangular craft over the treetops.

Since the object only appeared in one of the photographs, it was deemed unlikely to have been a reflection from the window. And what’s more, the camera had been checked and cleaned only hours earlier in preparation for the journey. It would appear whatever the object was, none of the other passengers reported seeing anything unusual. And the fact that Joy herself didn’t see the object at the time has led some researchers to suggest it was simply not visible to the human eye.^[5]

5 The 1957 Whitley Strieber Account: Abducted by Aliens on a Train Journey

Author Whitley Strieber is no stranger to UFO and alien encounters, having released the book Communion in the mid-1980s, telling of his own abduction experiences. However, if we believe Strieber’s claims, it would appear that his encounters with otherworldly entities have been happening since he was a child. One specific incident that is of interest to us here occurred “at some point in 1957” during a train journey from Wisconsin to Texas with his sister and his father.

In a truly bizarre case, without realizing what had happened, all three of them went from being on the speeding train to being on some kind of strange vehicle. Both Strieber and his sister could hear their father screaming in terror somewhere nearby.

In later years, using hypnotic regression, it was revealed that the incident was indeed a case of alien abduction. It also suggested that not only had Strieber seemingly been abducted repeatedly since he was young, but other members of his family had been as well. Perhaps also of interest, Strieber had vague memories of soldiers in uniform being present during the encounter.^[6]

4 UFO Photographed from a Train in Germany

As Harry Hauxler passed through the German town of Oberwesel on a train on the afternoon of March 8, 1964, he suddenly noticed a disc ascending into the sunlit sky. Realizing he had his camera with him, he pointed it toward the strange object and took a picture.

The object appeared to be a dark grey or black color and was a similar shape to a spinning top with a “dark vortex” underneath it.

Many skeptics who have viewed the picture have claimed the object is nothing more than a road sign or lamppost that has been produced by brief exposure because of the speed of the moving train. However, those who believe that Hauxler managed to capture something truly strange argue that, unlike other cases where the object was not seen until later, Hauxler claims to have seen the apparent craft rise with his own eyes at the time.

The picture (above) was soon released to the public and is still regarding as one of the most intriguing of such photographs.^[7]

3 UFO Witnessed from on Board an L&N Train near Mount Vernon

At just before 7 am on October 20, 1973, a conductor and another crew member on an L&N train witnessed a very bright light heading toward them from the north as they passed near Mount Vernon, Indiana—a period of active UFO sightings in the state. They noticed that the light appeared to be some kind of craft, but unlike any either had seen before. As they continued to watch it, they noted how it seemed to pulsate, going from blindingly bright to much dimmer. After several moments, the glowing object changed direction and headed away from the locomotive.

The conductor reported the sighting to the crew at the back of the train. Several moments later, they responded that there was now an unknown object at the back of the train, and it appeared to be following them. The unknown vehicle would follow the train for a considerable distance before eventually moving off as quickly as it had arrived.

According to the research and investigative work of Francis Ridge, the U.S. Air Force eventually confiscated the train in order to “study it.” Their findings, however, are unknown.^[8]

2 Senator Richard Russell Sees Disc-Shaped Object While Traveling Through the Soviet Union

While on a train journey in the Transcaucasia region of the Soviet Union on October 4, 1955, Georgia Senator, Richard Russell, witnessed a disc-shaped object while looking out of the window. He would claim that as the object rose into the air, he could see “a flame shot” from its underside.

He watched in amazement as the disc sped across the tracks in front of the train. At this point, Russell stood and approached his companions to tell them what he had just seen. As the group stared out of the window, they noticed another disc-shaped object approaching the moving train from the same direction as the first.

As the three men watched the bizarre incident unfold, a Soviet conductor approached them and pulled shut the curtains. He ordered them not to look out the window, which they duly obeyed.

They would report the sighting to the United States embassy as soon as they arrived in Prague, and news of the incident soon reached reporters in the United States. However, adding another layer of intrigue to the encounter, when Russell was asked about the sighting by a Los Angeles Examiner journalist, he responded that the agencies he had reported it to “are of the opinion that it is not wise to publicize this matter at this time.” The incident was eventually declassified in 1985.^[9]

1 Train Passenger Sees Six Disc-Shaped Objects over the Arizona Desert

More recently, in the summer of 2017, a train passenger traveling through Apache County in Arizona claimed to have seen “six hovering, two-story objects beaming light to the ground” below. According to the report submitted to MUFON, the witness was unable to sleep and so was looking out of the window at the time. It was then she noticed a “bright light that became brighter as the train approached.”

She soon realized there were multiple objects and that they were disc-shaped. She estimated they were approximately 100 feet from the moving train. The witness managed to capture several pictures of the moving objects, three of which were submitted to MUFON in the report.

The mother’s son—who filed the report—stated that his mother was “not one to exaggerate or seek attention” and that her claims should be treated as genuine. As we might imagine, there were many differing opinions on what the woman might have witnessed. And these ranged from a vehicle from another world to them being nothing more than a Chinese lantern. The sighting remains unexplained.^[10]

Marcus Lowth

Marcus Lowth is a writer with a passion for anything interesting, be it UFOs, the Ancient Astronaut Theory, the paranormal or conspiracies. He also has a liking for the NFL, film and music.

10 People Connected to UFOs Who Met Very Suspicious Ends

Johan Tobias — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 17:33:46 +0000

There are many conspiracies surrounding UFO research, but some of the most intriguing surround some of the researchers themselves, more specifically, their deaths. According to some, there have been several deaths, either from natural causes or from suicide, that investigators might wish to take another look at.

With accusations of suicides covering up murder to discreet poisons to imitate a natural death, some of these claims are darkly interesting, if admittedly speculative. Here are ten such cases.

Related: 10 Bizarre Figures From The UFO Contactee Movement

10 Ron Rummel – Too Close to the Truth?

Without a doubt, one of the most controversial deaths on our list is that of Ron Rummel. Rummel had a background as an Air Force intelligence agent. What’s more, in the years leading to his death, he was the publisher of the magazine Alien Digest. Some of the topics discussed in Alien Digest revolved around the idea that aliens were indeed on Earth. And had long-term plans to use humans as a “food source.” As we might imagine, many in the UFO community dismissed such notions.

Then, in August 1993, Rummel died—an apparent clear-cut suicide in which he had shot himself in the mouth. However, there were soon conspiracy claims of foul play. This included no blood being found on the barrel of the pistol nor fingerprints on the handle. It also appeared that the suicide note had been written by a left-handed person when Rummel was right-handed. According to some, Rummel had been silenced because he was “getting too close to the truth.”

How true these claims might be is still discussed by some in UFO circles. However, the official record reflects that Rummel, unfortunately, took his own life.^[1]

9 Ron Johnson – Drank From a Poisoned Soda Can?

Another tragic death that some researchers have highlighted as potentially suspicious is that of MUFON investigator Ron Johnson. He officially suffered a sudden fatal stroke at a meeting of the Society for Scientific Exploration in Texas in June 1994. Johnson, who was 43 years old and recently medically cleared as fit and well, let out a sudden gasp at the meeting before falling forward in his chair. Even more disturbing, his face had turned purple, and blood poured from his nose.

Although the cause of his death was ruled as natural (a stroke), some thought there was more to it. Several people at the meeting recalled him taking a drink from a soda can in the seconds before his sudden collapse and death. What’s more, given his involvement in UFO investigations and his background of working with advanced technology with several corporations, some people wondered if something had been placed around the soda can, or even in the drink that might have caused such a reaction that would have been easily dismissed as a stroke.^[2]

We should note that there is no proof of foul play, and the speculation is exactly that.

8 John Murphy – Discreetly Silenced Years After the Kecksburg Crash?

Perhaps one of the most little-known suspicious deaths of a person connected to UFOs is that of radio broadcaster John Murphy. We should note that Murphy was not a UFO investigator but a radio journalist. He happened to be in the right place at the right time during the alleged Kecksburg UFO crash in December 1965. So much so that he obtained audiotapes of witnesses and several photographs of the crash site.

This alleged evidence was ultimately confiscated by high-ranking government officials, an incident that was witnessed by at least one other radio station employee. In short, it appeared Murphy was very credible in his claims.

As much as he was in the right place at the right time to witness and document the Kecksburg incident, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time several years later in California in February 1969 when he was killed in a tragic hit-and-run accident. To some, though, the accident was anything but.^[3]

7 Tony Dodd – Tumor Triggered by Dark Agents?

For the 1990s and much of the early 2000s, Tony Dodd was one of the UK’s leading UFO researchers and investigators. That he had a long career as a police detective behind him only made him that much more credible regarding the incidents he investigated.

He was a regular speaker at various UFO events and investigated some of the most intriguing cases of UFO sightings and apparent alien abductions in the UK from the late-1980s to the early 2000s.

Dodd passed away in 2009 from a brain tumor. Given that he had—according to his own writings—received warnings to avoid certain countries due to possible attempts on his life, as well as direct warnings from a mysterious agent in the United States, many wondered if the tumor had somehow been “triggered” by agents of a dark agency with advanced technology. Dodd himself had written of such suggestions before.^[4]

Of course, like many on this list, these ideas and proposals are pure speculation.

6 John Mack – Death by Drunk Driver Just a Cover?

Without a doubt, John Mack is perhaps one of the most important people in UFO and alien abduction research, even now almost two decades after his tragic death in 2004 after being hit by a drunk driver while in London. What perhaps made Mack’s study of UFOs and alien abduction claims all the more vital to the UFO community was his position as a professor at Harvard University. He is largely seen as one of the first “academics” to look at such claims with a serious mind—and did so publicly.

There is almost certainly no more to Mack’s death than it being a truly tragic accident caused by a drunk driver. However, there were some in UFO circles who privately raised an eyebrow or two to the fact that someone making such wild (and well-researched) claims from such a lofty position should meet such a tragic end.^[5]

5 Ann Livingstone – “Poisoned” by the Men in Black?

UFO investigator and MUFON member Ann Livingstone died in 1994 of a fast-acting and aggressive form of ovarian cancer. However, many of her fellow MUFON members, fellow investigators, and close friends began to wonder if a UFO sighting and subsequent encounters with the “Men in Black” might have been connected to her tragic death.

The incident in question went back to December 1992. One evening, her apartment near O’Hare Airport in Chicago was suddenly lit up by a “silver-white flash.” Then, only a few hours later, several “faceless” entities dressed very similar to the Men in Black arrived at her apartment. Moments later, she blacked out, unaware of what happened next.

As outlandish as it might sound to many, some researchers have suggested that her illness was a result of this strange meeting. Of course, whether there is any truth to such assertions remains open to debate, at least for some.^[6]

4 Jim Keith – A Series of Coincidences or a Suspicious End?

The death of researcher and author Jim Keith could very well be a case of several bizarre and unlikely coincidences. However, several strange odds and ends surround his death that have made some believe it to be a little suspicious.

Keith had been involved in examining the work of Danny Casolaro (an investigative journalist whose death was also suspicious). He essentially claimed Casolaro’s statements of an “octopus” of individuals controlling events from behind the scenes was accurate. Further were the claims of drug testing by dark, government “contacts” on residents in areas such as Dulce in New Mexico (against their will) under the bizarre guise of alien abduction to divert attention away from their very real (and illegal) activities.

Whatever the truth, Keith would fall from a stage at a festival in 2004, breaking his tibia and requiring surgery. It was a surgery that he would never wake up from. His official cause of death was a blood clot in his lung that caused him to pass away on the operating table. Incidentally, around the same time as Keith’s death, one platform he wrote for (Nitro News) completely disappeared from the internet for several weeks.^[7]

3 James Forrestal – Was He Pushed or Did He Jump?

At just before 2 am on May 22, 1949, the very first Secretary of Defense of the United States, a position he had resigned from only months earlier, jumped from the 13th floor of Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland. He was being treated for depression at the facility at the time of his death, but to some, including members of his own family, his death was far from a clear-cut suicide.

According to the official version of events, Forrestal was last seen when a guard checked on him at 1:45 am. He was reading in his room. It is then said that Forrestal immediately left the room and made his way to the kitchen, where he then tied a bathrobe rope to the nearby radiator and the other end around his neck. Then, he jumped from the window. The rope snapped, and he fell to his death.

However, several things leaped out at those who examined this official version. First, the rope around his neck would not have been long enough to allow him to reach the window from the radiator. What’s more, there was no evidence that the rope had ever been in contact with the radiator.

Even more suspicious is the guard who was on duty that evening. He had not been to the facility before and was brought in as a last-minute replacement. He gave his statement—as the last person to see Forrestal alive, remember—and then discreetly disappeared back into anonymity.

Most alarming, though, were the scratch marks discovered on the window ledge it is claimed Forrestal jumped from. This suggested that Forrestal was forced out of the window and then desperately attempted to cling to the ledge before finally falling.

From a UFO perspective, given the events at Roswell and the many other UFO incidents that occurred in the final years of the 1940s, Forrestal almost certainly knew everything there was to know about this strange, new phenomenon sweeping the United States. To some, it was this knowledge that made him a target of an unknown dark government agency.^[8]

2 Morris K. Jessup – A Sudden, Suspicious End?

An early name in UFO research is Morris K. Jessup, author of the 1955 book, The Case for the UFO. Unknown to Jessup, the release of the book would spark a series of events that would result in his tragic death. Jessup began receiving correspondence from a mysterious gentleman named Carl Allen, who eventually claimed to have been involved in the legendary Philadelphia Experiment. This correspondence caught the attention of the U.S. Navy, who questioned Jessup at length about it and his UFO research in general.

However, following the meeting, Jessup began receiving strange phone calls. This caused him to be much more guarded in his research. Then, on April 19, he made arrangements with Dr. J. Manson Valentine to meet him the following day regarding a “breakthrough” he had made. Jessup never arrived at that meeting.

He was discovered the following day, dead in his car, a hosepipe coming out of the window leading to the exhaust. Some believe the suicide was actually murder. Perhaps one of the reasons was the soaked towels wrapped around the hose pipe. Not only did they not belong to Jessup, but there was also no water source anywhere nearby for him to have soaked them in.

The real circumstances behind his death are still debated today.^[9]

1 Phil Schneider – Murder Covered-Up as Suicide?

Of all the people on this list, without a doubt, the most controversial is our last entry, Phil Schneider. In the early 1990s, Schneider began a series of public lectures where he claimed to have worked for the United States government at various underground facilities. It was during this work that he stumbled into a full-on battle between underground aliens and a military unit below Dulce. He would even claim to have suffered an injury during the fight from a futuristic alien weapon, scars he displayed publicly several times.

As you can imagine, many scoffed at Schneider’s claims, even some from inside the UFO community. Others, however, seemingly bought into what he was saying entirely. And his talks still circulate around the Internet today. He would also state during these talks that “how long I will be able to do this” was not known.

Officially, Schneider took his own life on January 17, 1996. His body was discovered with a piece of wire flex wrapped several times around the neck, an apparent hanging. Many people, including some members of his family, dismissed the suicide claims.^[10]

Marcus Lowth

Marcus Lowth is a writer with a passion for anything interesting, be it UFOs, the Ancient Astronaut Theory, the paranormal or conspiracies. He also has a liking for the NFL, film and music.

UFOs – Listorati

Top 10 Military Bases Linked To UFOs (That Aren’t Area 51)

10 Malmstrom Air Force Base

9 Carswell Air Force Base

8 Wright-Patterson Air Force Base

7 Fort Dix

6 29 Palms

5 Fort Meade

4 Edwards Air Force Base

3 Kirtland Air Force Base

2 Holloman Air Force Base

1 Dobbins Air Force Base